Recently I got the opportunity to tour a potential college this week, and after viewing the campus and all that it had to offer with my mom and our friends, we had some time to talk about everything that we liked and disliked. To be able to get to the school on time I had to wake up at 5 AM, which I'm obviously not used to, considering it is August, and my body has been running away from anything close to a normal sleep schedule since May. After the almost four-hour-long tour, my mom and her friend took my sister, my friend, and me out to lunch. While talking about the college, the younger of the five of us had all mentioned that we were tired and impatiently anticipating the ride home to catch up on some lost dreams, but with the comment came an unexpected annoyance from our parents. My mom soon chimed in that she thinks that all we do is sleep. She blames my phone for why I don't go to bed at a decent hour, and that it is also why I tend to nap during the day and not have a lot of energy. When she said this I became very upset, and here is why:

Since I have entered high school I realized a lot about myself, and one of those things is that I like to be busy! This is very common in the high school world today, whether you play a sport, play an instrument, do theatre, have a job, take really hard classes, volunteer, or do several or all of the subjects mentioned, you probably spend more time at your school or work place then you do at your house! I know that is true for me. I am captain on the speech team, participate in the student orchestra, theatre, young life (a religious group), and have a job where I work at least 3 days a week every week. Along with that, I'm taking 4 AP classes this year, yet I know that most night I won't be home until at least 9 o'clock to even think about starting homework, let alone eating dinner. I feel as though a lot of people can relate to this kind of life style--the life style that has been forced upon millions of young students all around America. I know I feel like I'm constantly competing with everyone around me in order to stand out, or feel proud of myself, because the standards we have set as Americans and just people in general, are so outrageously high. I'm not complaining because I know I could easily drop some of the extra curricular activities, but I love the people I meet, and I like the classes I take and the money that I make. I'm not complaining at all, but it struck me funny when my mom started to nag about my sleeping habits because I do a lot, even in the summer I've been working close to 5 days a week, I took a summer class, I'm taking an ACT prep class, and still have to do summer reading along with 30 reading logs due by the first day of school. Summer has been relaxing, but it is still stressful in many ways. With all of this being said, my main point is to say that we shouldn't shame sleeping! Sleeping is a human reaction, without sleep we die. Cats sleep almost 23 hours a day and they are the happiest creatures I know. I think when children fall asleep in class, they shouldn't be embarrassed by a book slamming on their desk to wake them up, maybe they should go to the nurses office, so they can be healthy!

Because here is the thing for everybody: people are tired. Especially in the American way of life, we force so much work into all the time that we can get. We even invented the lightbulb so that we could work longer! The sun knows when humans need to rest, and we really got ourselves in a pickle by defying it with that damn lightbulb.

There have been thousands of sleep studies done, proving that teenagers need more sleep than what they actually get. There have been millions of people blaming video games and cellphone as to why we don't sleep, but the truth is we have a very hard, demanding schedule, just like everybody else. I think for the most part I really manage my time well and try to get as much quality sleep as I can, but I have also come to terms with the fact that I will always and forever be a tired person. The world keeps me up at night.

So in summer when I am given the chance to sleep, I am going to sleep! I am going to take naps until it turns into that nights sleep and when I have to wake up in the morning I'll defy the sun and continue to sleep. Rest is such an essential part of our mental state. Sleeping more improves our thought process and creativity, It gives us more energy, and makes us a lot less grouchy! It is a natural thing to want to sleep and we shouldn't fight our bodies anymore than we already do. Don't consider it a weakness to want to sleep, sleep while you can! And don't feel like you're being lazy when you sleep. We don't always have to be productive. Sometimes resting is the most productive thing that we can do!